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Small Fred I Will Stand Fast At The Elbe Well mister I just overheard you talking through your drink How the Russians lie like rugs how they've pushed us to the brink Now sit right here beside me I've an old man's tale to tell How Yanks and Reds were friends once at the Elbe. My name is Joe Polowski I hitched up in '41 Left my sweetheart in Chicago and I learned to fire a gun The fog in the Ardennes so thick you could not see your nose Nor the ghosts in the Belgian wood advancing through the snow. We left our dead behind us and we scaled the Dragon's Teeth With screaming mimis overhead not one of us could sleep Some fell to the enemy some fell to the creeping cold And I killed a German sniper who was not fourteen years old. When a soldier takes a hit my friend it ain't like Hollywood Bone and guts go flying and everywhere there's blood For a moment he is mystified there must be some mistake As it all drains out in a crimson lake. Then April turned the weather and likewise the tide of war As haggard hungry Germans surrendered by the score And thank god for the Russians who took the battle's brunt And broke the back of the Wermacht along the eastern front. Then We saw a burst of lilacs and the river swift and wide And rest and welcome waiting for us on the other side And Yanks and Reds laughed out loud to be alive at the Elbe. We caught the glint of water and upon the distant shore Men and trucks and horses not German and not ours No bridge to cross but at the dock a boat securely tied We blew the chain and rowed like demons for the other side. But when we stepped up on the land oh Jesus what a sight Blackened bodies of civilians like driftwood piled high Cut down by stray artillery -- what the hell is it all for We knelt and cursed the cruelty and madness men call war. Three Russians approached us, we shook hands and then embraced Stalingrad had traced its lines of sadness on their face Upon that field of corpses these weary happy men Swore an oath that it must never happen again. And then we wept and cheered and spoke in languages unknown They poured us Russian vodka by god we drank it down We sang "The Volga Boatman" they sang "Tavern in the Town" I never kissed so many men as on that afternoon when We saw a burst of lilacs and the river swift and wide And rest and welcome waiting for us on the other side And Yanks and Reds laughed out loud to be alive at the Elbe. But no sooner were we stateside than the cold war headlines read Commies in the unions commies under every bed Hurrah the Nazi devil's down long live the devil Red And not one word about the oath we swore amongst the dead. There are kids today who'll tell you we fought Russia in the war There are armchair heroes set to settle some old score There are profiteers and pushers primed to send young men once more To blow themselves to glory on some godforsaken shore. So drape my coffin with the flag of the good old USA Let Yanks in army khaki and Reds in Russian gray Lower me so gently into the German clay And speak again the oath we swore that day when We saw a burst of lilacs and the river swift and wide And rest and welcome waiting for us on the other side And Yanks and Reds laughed out loud to be alive at the Elbe. ...at the Elbe. |
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